


Heat

by corviiy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, No Sex, Trans Character, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:12:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corviiy/pseuds/corviiy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a young adult troll, Karkat's instincts have kicked in. It's drone season for him, but Dave isn't ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat

You don't know what it is lately, but every time you're around any of the trolls you can feel your hair stand on edge. It's not because of their final molt or anything, though, it's left all of them bigger than before. You don't really mind that, the only time you did is when Karkat started getting a leg up on you in height. Needless to say, you got over it pretty quickly. By the time he did go through his adult molt it was already a moot issue

You digress.

There's something about them you're not quite getting, and you wonder if Rose is in on the big secret. Probably, she knows a lot better about troll behavior(which made you smug about understanding quadrants a touch better than she does). Still, you don't like walking into a room with Karkat and feeling so weird. It's not that his eyes linger on you, or that he wants to be near you. That's pretty standard boyfriend stuff. There's just almost a scent of something different. You don't want to say hostile, but you haven't felt this way since you were a preteen trying to titter around your apartment with just the right balance of controlled relax and guard while you'd wait for Bro to attack you. You don't get this feeling with only Karkat, either, even the other trolls feel off. Though with them it's not directed at you, there's just something predatory in the air.

The attack your body is programmed to anticipate is...well, it's not an attack. Obviously. Karkat can't physically hurt you, he never would want to. You're making coffee in the little kitchenette of your apartment-hive hybrid when he comes up behind you, resting his hands on either side of the counter and burying his head in your neck. Cue the ghibli shivers.

"Mornin big guy." You tell him. It's not really morning. A lot of trying to hybridize humans and trolls has been compromising on sleeping schedules and arrangements. As a kid you were content to stay up until the wee hours of the morning, especially since your time powers jacked up your internal clock somethin fierce. Now, though, you feel your body trying to adjust to a primal nine-to-five. Likewise, Karkat is very difficult to wake in the daylight hours. You have a half assed compromise where the two of you wake up around two or three in the morning and go to bed laughably early in the day.

His response to your greeting is little more than a grunt. The little more part is some undertone of growling, and you gaze down at his hands to see them straining, white knuckled as they grip the counter. Okay. That's about as much as you can take of not knowing what's up. You set down the coffee and turn around to face him. You get a full second of taking in the way his face is flushed and his pupils are blown before his arms wrap around you, and pull you as flush against him as he can manage.

"I'm gonna go back to bed." He mutters. His voice is low, tired, and it wavers a little bit. You pull back a little--not easy, he's strong--and look at him.

"What's going on?" You ask. It's more of a demand you think.

"I--what?" His face is exasperation to the highest degree and your day has just begun.

"Seriously. You don't get to act confused when everybody else is in on some big weird troll secret that's been makin' y'all act herky-jerky for days." You say to him. You'd stomp your foot too but he's actually holding most of your weight in the hug.

"Yeah, well. It's troll business, not human business. Maybe that's why you're not exactly on the up-and-up." He says. You can still hear something unrecognizable in his voice.

"Okay but whatever it is, it's obviously making you suffer-" You wiggle in his grasp, and that makes him hold onto you tighter instead of letting you go. You don't like that. "-and it's puttin' my danger-dar on the fritz so maybe--hey, Karkat-hey, stop!"

He freezes, like he didn't notice he was sinking his claws into your skin, nose buried in your neck like a primo piece of flank steak ready for ravenous consumption. When he pulls away and let go he looks truly sorry, but at the same time there's a sort of glaze to his eyes.

Oh.

Ooooh.

"Heat? You're in heat?" You ask, breathing out a short, incredulous laugh. He nods, the look on his face downright shameful. "God. Thank god I thought-" It changes to panicked concern. "-I...I don't know what I thought. It's just been makin' me feel weird. At least this I can handle, c'mon." You tell him. He takes your hand when you reach for him.

You don't know why you said you can handle that. Probably because you can handle it better than you can handle murderous or otherwise non-concupiscent carnivourousness. The truth is, when you get to the bedroom and sit him down on the bed, you really don't know what to do next. You know that when trolls hot adulthood and it's drone season, they start getting scared they'll die if they don't mate. You don't think you're ready for mating. You know for a fact that the virgin mother grub that Kanaya hatched isn't ready to start taking slurry, so there really isn't an obligation here to pail him. He looks kind of pathetic though.

He keeps his legs together, his face is visibly hot. He fidgets, anticipation driving him up a wall. You really don't know what to do. What can you say? You're not ready. But your boyfriend suffers, so you think you're gonna go ahead and take one for the team.

You swallow the lump in your throat and inch closer before slipping onto his lap entirely. He welcomes it by wrapping his arms around your waist. His hands are warm, curled around your ribs. It makes your spine tingle in a way that only intensifies when his lips seek yours out. He even kisses with a desperation that you don't recognize, pushing firm and insistent against yours. Just as it is any other time you've made out with him though, it's easy to get lost in the feeling.

You drew the conclusion a long time ago that the concept of a good kisser is a myth. Not that Karkat is bad by any means. You love kissing him. It just wasn't instantly amazing. In the beginning you spent so much time figuring out what felt good when making out that when you were done your lips tingled, swollen and spent. You'd still wanted to kiss him afterwards. It was a collaboration, like jamming music with new people. There was a learning curve to working with him but you created something good together, not because either of you were objectively good kissers separate.

This time it's just like the early days. You don't even notice until you're under him, sharing breath, and you feel that buzzing. He doesn't stop for gentle, lingering looks like he normally does though and it makes your chest fill with what feels like the rough side of a sponge. He starts kissing your neck, teeth dragging over your skin. You stare up at the ceiling, stop feeling it, all you can hear is your own breathing.

His voice brings you back, snaps your attention to his worry-etched features.

"Dave?" He's breathless as he says your name. You make an inquisitive sort of noise. "You stopped, you--hf--you stopped moving. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," You ARE okay. You know that. Despite your go ahead he sinks to your side, not on top of you but still pressed close. "I said I'm--"

"I know." He mumbles. He wraps his arms tight around your waist and pushes his face against your shoulder. "Just, this is okay."

"Karkat I wanna help." You tell him.

"You fucking are you insufferable nimrod. This is okay. I'll be okay." His voice is gravelly from behind you, muffled by your shirt.

You're not really sure if you believe him but you relax anyway. His grip on you is so strong and real, like if he lets go you'll float away. You fold into it, pressed warmly against his chest as he curls around you and effectively renders you an i-r-l waifu pillow. You can definitely deal with cuddling for an undefined amount of time, if that's what he wants to do.

He holds onto you so tight that it's almost possessive. When you move, he squeezes tighter. Sometimes he'll relax, as far as you can tell it comes in waves of increasing amounts of discomfort. Kind of like a period, you're guessing. Sometimes it's even sharp, his grip will jerk, hard, make you jump and groan because his fingers dig into you. You realize this must be difficult for him. You remember Kanaya talking about drone season once and how being in heat feels like you'll die. Because, it's in his instincts. His body truly believe's he'll die if he doesn't do something. Despite all that, he's just...holding you. Yeah, sometimes its so tight you feel your bones creak. Otherwise it's nice, it's like cuddling.

When daybreak rolls around, he seems to be getting worse. Shaking, you'd think he was running a fever, and sometimes he groans. You move a little, and he tightens his grip.

"Karkat," You squirm a little more and say his name again, and his grip on you gets looser. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna go try and find some stuff to help the situation, get me?" He whines, and it breaks your heart because he really sounds uncomfortable. Despite that, he lets you go, and you give him a pillow to squeeze. "Stay right here okay. Ten minutes max." He nods and buries his face into the pillow he's holding.

You pace out to the living room of your shared apartment, and immediately set to drawing curtains. Light is no fuckin bueno. As you work to make the room more comfortable, Karkat shouts 'WHAT' from the other room. At this point, you've developed a routine for when you're talking to yourself and he thinks you're talking to him. It's just a short, sweet 'Nothing' as a completely knee-jerk reaction. You think it's cute, despite how many years you've been together that he still thinks you're talking to him when you're monologing.   
You go into the closet and gather up a mountain of pillows. Growing up, you had one paper thin piece of garbage as a pillow. It's a symbolic testimony to your shitty trappings as a kid so you pinned it to a wall with a sword to remind yourself to be fucking grateful and not to snap at people when they bitch about the game destroying earth, because not everybody's life dramatically improved afterwards. You were always alchemizing pillows on the meteor and they were always getting jacked. Once you and Karkat settled into your can-shaped apartment, you alchemized enough to make a nest and a pile all in one. So that's what you do, pushing your couch aside and stacking up pillows methodically in front of the television in order to make a comfortable, cushiony mound. You pop The Secret of Kells into the DVD player and allow it to run through the commercials while you get everything else ready.

Everything is good, aesthetically pleasing. You pulled the coffee table up to the pile-nest and you've placed iced tea down on it, next to a fever reducer and some ibuprofen. You're not sure if that'll work for his specific issue, but you may as well try. 

When you return to the bedroom, he seems to have calmed down some. Though, you think your presence possibly starts to rile him again. 

"Hey," You take his hand and guide him into sitting position. "C'mon, I've got some shit to make you feel better." He doesn't seem to want to move at first. He definitely doesn't want to let go of the pillow. He does both, though, clinging to your arm as you guide him out of your bedroom and into the living room. There's eager relief written all over his face and he doesn't wait for you to walk over and flop over onto the pillows. It must be some kind of relief to him, because he takes a deep breath and exhales a charmingly characteristic groan that makes you smile.

He actually stretches, and rolls over to make room for you on the pile. You make sure to push play on the DVD before settling in next to him. 

"What're these?" He picks up the pills on the coffee table, his voice still laced with strain.

"Just some pills I'll take when I'm not feelin too hot. Thought maybe they could work on you. One of them I think'll cool you off and boy shitting howdy do you need it you were in this spot for all of two seconds its warm goddamn--" He shoots you a look. It screams get on with it. "And the other is like, it reduces inflammation so like if your trollies are all swollen and stuff it should help calm it. So if it's less swollen it should be less uncomfortable." He eyes the pills, then shrugs, apparently having the same mentality that you do about it being worth a try.  
He takes it with iced tea. He drinks half the bottle and then caps it, pressing the cool plastic against his face and rolling it around as Aisling's whispery voice starts telling an ominous Celtic tale.

Once finished rubbing his face down with a cool bottle, he lays back and turns to the side. You go the rest of the way, turning with your back to him and allowing his strong arms to wrap around you and squeeze. Again, just like before he might be holding you a little more firm than you'd prefer, but you're proud of him, in a way, that he's disregarding every instinct in him that screams at him to split you in two. The only real downside is sweat. He's so warm that he sweats, especially pressed against your back. The two of you stay like this for about an hour before he stops shaking, and you hear his breath break heavy with sleep.

Yeah, alright. That makes sense to you. Whenever you have a bad period you do basically the same thing. Groan, moan, grab an unreasonable amount of ibuprofen, and sweat it out until sleep befalls you and you wake up painless. You hope he'll wake up painless, you really do. For now, though, his grip on you is relaxed, his sweating is an issue that's solved by pulling away for about ten minutes and allowing your back you be cooled by pillows. When you come back in, he sleepily wraps his arms around your midsection and buries his face into your chest. Otherwise, there's no pulling or squeezing. There's just gentle cuddling, and sleep.

You think you'll follow his lead.


End file.
